(12-11-2013 11:44 PM)I and I Wrote: And no I don't care if someone dislikes his own countrymen enough to leave and take his company somewhere else. Nobody is making them stay or leave. You act as if there is something special about people like bill gates, as if without them life would be bad.

That is the stupidest statement: You chase them out of the country, beating them to a pulp, insisting they are evil, despicable scum deserving of nothing but a whipping because they are successful. And then once they're gone, you claim they were "traitors" who just didn't like their countrymen.

More telling is we now see how Stalin and Pol Pot evolved. They start out saying the same thing. But then when Bill Gates actually leaves, it's not just one man. It's the hundreds of products he invents, and hundreds of billions in sales revenue (and tax revenue) that they create, as well as hundreds of thousands of jobs. And then when Steve Jobs, Larry Page, Mark Zuckerberg, and all the other brightest and best leave because you have chased them away, you find your economy in ruins. So you surround your country with walls and armed border guards to keep them from escaping, turning your country into a giant prison, and also isolating yourself from the rest of the world. Until the whole thing collapses or you become North Korea.

You must obviously not believe what you write because if you did, you would simply move to North Korea where your utopian vision exists in real life. I _DO_ believe what I write, and therefore I _DID_ move to Switzerland, the closest place I found to a libertarian paradise on earth. And I was very happy there. The country is safe, sound and prosperous. My only problem was that Switzerland is still within reach of the US, and US has thousands of agents around the world, including Switzerland, to track down Americans who have defected and force us to send back to the US everything we accomplish. It's life-long indentured servitude. But you don't have that problem. The US has no agents in North Korea. You can immigrate there and you are free and out of reach. So why are you still complaining? Why not get on a flight and make your escape to the one communist paradise left on earth?

I don't like a North Korea that is poor due to sanctions anymore than you like the countless failed extremely poor countries that are failed capitalist countries.

And no, there is no reason to care whether or not someone chooses to take their business somewhere else, that is their choice. And why would this matter in the US? There are no large manufacturing productions going on here anyway, capitalism has driven them out.

You act as if there is something beneficial to society regarding business owners. What exactly do they do for society?

(14-11-2013 06:33 AM)I and I Wrote: I don't like a North Korea that is poor due to sanctions anymore than you like the countless failed extremely poor countries that are failed capitalist countries.

North Korea may have sanctions from the West, but they also get shitloads of aid from China, and China has everything N Korea needs to survive. N Korea has been trying for 30 years to open a luxury hotel (Ryugyong) and hasn't been able to, and it's still an unfinished, dilapidated shell. China, however, builds luxury hotels every day with unprecedented speed, and shares know-how and supplies all the material to N. Korea. Sanctions are a cop-out.

As far as me not want to go to 'failed capitalist countries', naturally, by "capitalist" I refer to free-market capitalist countries, which practice classic liberalism, not "crony capitalism" where the government and business are intertwined and concentrate the wealth in the hands of the well-connected. There are no failed 'classic liberal free market capitalist' that I'm aware of. To my knowledge, they are ALL a success. And, yes, you could pick any one of them and I would definitely prefer to live there than in the US, my problem is simply that the US won't let Americans leave without renouncing citizenship and being stateless, at which point none of those countries will let me in. So I seem to be trapped here against my will. If you have a solution, let me know, please.

(14-11-2013 06:33 AM)I and I Wrote: You act as if there is something beneficial to society regarding business owners. What exactly do they do for society?

Uh, they create all the products and goods, as well as the jobs. For there to be a business, SOMEBODY has to own it. Whether it's the communist party, as in your preferred system, or private individuals in mine, no matter what, SOMEBODY has to own it and there has to be a chain of command to decisions done. So when you suggest we can do without business owners, you're suggesting we do without business. In this case, every man would be a subsistence farmer or hunter gatherer. We would like early humanoids millions of years ago. There would be no modern medicine. No computers, nothing. I do not want to live like that. But if you do, nobody is stopping you. You can get a plot of fertile land somewhere for next to nothing, and live off the grid, living like they did millions of years ago.

(14-11-2013 06:33 AM)I and I Wrote: I don't like a North Korea that is poor due to sanctions anymore than you like the countless failed extremely poor countries that are failed capitalist countries.

North Korea may have sanctions from the West, but they also get shitloads of aid from China, and China has everything N Korea needs to survive. N Korea has been trying for 30 years to open a luxury hotel (Ryugyong) and hasn't been able to, and it's still an unfinished, dilapidated shell. China, however, builds luxury hotels every day with unprecedented speed, and shares know-how and supplies all the material to N. Korea. Sanctions are a cop-out.

As far as me not want to go to 'failed capitalist countries', naturally, by "capitalist" I refer to free-market capitalist countries, which practice classic liberalism, not "crony capitalism" where the government and business are intertwined and concentrate the wealth in the hands of the well-connected. There are no failed 'classic liberal free market capitalist' that I'm aware of. To my knowledge, they are ALL a success. And, yes, you could pick any one of them and I would definitely prefer to live there than in the US, my problem is simply that the US won't let Americans leave without renouncing citizenship and being stateless, at which point none of those countries will let me in. So I seem to be trapped here against my will. If you have a solution, let me know, please.

(14-11-2013 06:33 AM)I and I Wrote: You act as if there is something beneficial to society regarding business owners. What exactly do they do for society?

Uh, they create all the products and goods, as well as the jobs. For there to be a business, SOMEBODY has to own it. Whether it's the communist party, as in your preferred system, or private individuals in mine, no matter what, SOMEBODY has to own it and there has to be a chain of command to decisions done. So when you suggest we can do without business owners, you're suggesting we do without business. In this case, every man would be a subsistence farmer or hunter gatherer. We would like early humanoids millions of years ago. There would be no modern medicine. No computers, nothing. I do not want to live like that. But if you do, nobody is stopping you. You can get a plot of fertile land somewhere for next to nothing, and live off the grid, living like they did millions of years ago.

The absence of or presence of business owners means nothing to the ordinary daily operations of a business. Do people who work in a Pepsi care or know who the owners of Pepsi are? They do their work regardless of an owner.

"Crony capitalism" is a cop out, the flaws of capitalism remain no matter what form it's practiced in, history shows this. If I have to account for North Korea then you have to account for horrible capitalist countries.

(14-11-2013 10:45 AM)I and I Wrote: The absence of or presence of business owners means nothing to the ordinary daily operations of a business. Do people who work in a Pepsi care or know who the owners of Pepsi are? They do their work regardless of an owner.

So, if nobody owned Pepsi, all the shareholders were gone, then there would be nobody to appoint a board the officers. No CEO, nothing. If there's no top-level management, there's nobody to hire mid-level management. And if there's no mid-level management, you seriously think all the laborers are going to keep going to work???

(14-11-2013 10:45 AM)I and I Wrote: "Crony capitalism" is a cop out, the flaws of capitalism remain no matter what form it's practiced in, history shows this. If I have to account for North Korea then you have to account for horrible capitalist countries.

No, it's _NOT_ a cop-out at all. Because although you are advocating communism, I am NOT advocating 'capitalism'. The only thing I'm arguing for is freedom and liberty; that everybody should be able to make own decisions, free from threats of violence and physical force to coerce them into doing things against their well. I don't really care how you get there, and I've acknowledged that modern day communists, like Noam Chomsky, have interesting ideas, and I'd like to see them tried, and if it works in achieving the goal of freedom and liberty, I'll move there. I'd support other non-capitalist systems too, like the Venus Project.

So when I criticize your political views favoring old-Soviet style communism, I do NOT do so because it's not capitalist. I do so because people were stripped of all freedom and liberty. When I say I favor free-market capitalism without government interference, like in Hong Kong or Switzerland or Singapore, I do so only BECAUSE it results in the greatest freedom and liberty.

When I've criticized you, it's NEVER for being communist. It's because you want to get there through a violent revolution that hauls people off at gunpoint, puts them into forced labor, and shoots and kills those who object. THAT is what we're debating--communism vs. capitalism is a strawman.

Also, when wages are increased, often the first thing businesses do is FIRE people.

Bury me with my guns on, so when I reach the other side - I can show him what it feels like to die.
Bury me with my guns on, so when I'm cast out of the sky, I can shoot the devil right between the eyes.

The people closely associated with the namesake of female canines are suffering from a nondescript form of lunacy.
"Anti-environmentalism is like standing in front of a forest and going 'quick kill them they're coming right for us!'" - Jake Farr-Wharton, The Imaginary Friend Show.

Bury me with my guns on, so when I reach the other side - I can show him what it feels like to die.
Bury me with my guns on, so when I'm cast out of the sky, I can shoot the devil right between the eyes.